THE ARTS 4 ty t=} S = .7) we a - . ; . a . . . +} ; | Monique Veening, Stan Dalton and Bob O'Neill finish a training session in preparation for their cycling o marathon from Vancouver to Toronto this August. The trip is intended to call attention to the Peace is 2 — oo Everybody's Business Petition campaign. % : ' Clayburgh treats drug comeback well !'M DANCING AS FAST AS | CAN. Screenplay by David Rabe, from the book by Barbara Gordon: directed by Jack Hoffiss; photography by Jan de Bont. Star- ring Jill Clayburgh. This autobiographical novel turned film is a tough, and at times, deeply touching story of the author, Barbara Gordon, brilliantly played by Jill Clayburgh. A grim and grisly tale of middleclass, professional, modern New Yorkers in the upper TV slums, and the stress and strain of staying on top, which Often, as in this case, leads to the only seeming avenue of escape from madness; the drug habit. In this case it is the realization that this daily overdoing of Valium — up to 60 (8 mg a day) at the psychiatrist's prescription — actually brings about madness when she tries to quit. Bright, lively, she lives with a man she loves whom we soon discover is a lawyer devoted to helping the poor, but who is resentful of her fame and financial success (she wins Emmy awards calmly and regularly) he finds his solace in vodka. But this outwardly self-contained and inwardly self-ravaged young woman begins to fall apart; he is then overjoyed when she deter- mindely dumps her supply of drugs down the toilet and flushes it. headaches, fits and the most frightening loss of sanity. Forcibly . he restrains her from seeking the psychiatrist to whom she has been going for 10 years, whose only prescription is more Valium. The immediate cause of this last crisis is the reaction of the woman about whom she is making a documentary film, a well known poet-professor who is dying of cancer. When she proudly shows the rough cut of the film to the woman she is harshly chewed out. Becoming insane, she is taken to hospital, from there to a mental institution. She is put in the hands of a young, tough therapist whom she hates, screams at, defies, and then is forced - to admire. The final scene is tender, loving and one in which she finds peace through an understanding of herself and the dying cancer patient, with whom she collaborates on a new ending to the documentary. film. The cast, along with the excellent and heartfelt performance of Clayburgh, is excellent. Nicol Williamson, as the frustrated, vodka-soaked lover, Geraldine Page as the cancer patient and others help bring to this film more than the personal stories — implicit throughout is that the society is as sick, as drugged, as the characters it drives in that direction. Honor for Asner Humanitarian honors wer awarded to actor Ed Asner, president of the Screen Actors Guild, by Rev. Phillip Zwerling pastor of the First Unitarian | Church ofLos Angles on beha} of the church’s Fellowship for Social Justice. The Plaque | commends Asner “who at great | personal and professional risk has fought for human rights at home and abroad. For his humanitarian assistance to the people of El Salvador, for his dedication to progressive trade unionism; he has set, for us all, commitment.” an example of courage and| Ks But her physical reaction is violent. First vomiting, then severe — Lester Cole Sorting out the young and old Marx THE MAKING OF THE MARXIST PHILOSOPHY, by T.1. Oizerman. Prog- ress Publishers, Moscow. 1981. 496 Pp. $8.95. Available from Progress Books, 71 Bathurst Street, Toronto or local bookstores. For a long time spokesmen of the pseudo-"Left’’ and even some of the Left have tried to pit the young Marx against the later Marx. Some even proc- laim the young Marx to be the ‘‘real’’ Marx. A clerical writer on Marxism, Ench Thier, for example, even ex- laimed: ** The young Marx is a discovery of our day.” Attempts are made to use the young Marx against the later Marx as a non- class way of interpreting Marx ‘‘which can be generally accepted,’ as a U.S. philosopher, Kenneth A. Megill, has Said. It is the virtue of the lucid volume under review here that it dispels such illusions by examining fully ‘‘the making of the Marxist philosophy” and reveals the dialectic of the process which led Karl Marx and Frederich Engels from idealism and revolutionary democracy to dialectical materialism and scientific communism. It should not be thought that this is a scholastic exercise of interest and signi- ficance only to scholars. As Oizerman points out, Lenin “attached prime importance to the analysis of the development of Marxism, in general, and of the shaping of the Marxist philosophy PACIFIC TRIBUNE— APRIL 30, 1982—Page 14 in particular.’* Oizerman further points out that ‘*It was Lenin who drew a line of fundamental distinction between the early and later writings of Marx and En- gels, and also gave the classical characterization of their most important works in their formative years.” It is fascinating exploration that Oizerman undertakes in his book as he shows the various elements which en- tered into the thinking of Marx and En- gels. It is also a necessary exploration to combat the ideologues who seek to use the early writings to combat the scientific teachings of the later Marx and Engels. In 1843, as Lenin wrote, Marx, ‘twas only becoming Marx, i.e., the founder of socialism as a science.” Marx and Engels did not call them- selves communists in The Holy Family. They called their doctrine ‘‘real human- ism.*’ Their scientific socialist teaching did not spring from their minds, as Minerva did from the brow of Zeus. On the contrary, as Oizerman shows, ‘‘the scientific philosophical outlook was forced in fundamental distinction both to the pre-Marxist philosophical teachings, in general, and the philosophical views the two men had held in their early days.”” But the vandal ideologues who try to rob the treasury of Marxism disregard the dialectic of this development — and its negation of the old. Some one-sidedly overemphasize works in which idealism is a major aspect; some the false alleged “economist”’ aspect; others stress what they claim are contradictory elements in the views of Marx and Engels, and so on. These ideologues have one thing in common: They are seeking ways of combatting the scientific socialist views of the mature Marx and Engels because socialism’s victory in a large part of the world is a victory for Marxism-Lenin- ism. The early writings of Marx and Engels are a facet of their development. Oizer- man, in fact, notes a number of group- ings. He writes: ‘Some of their early writings are informed by idealism: a sec- ond group marks the start of their ad- vance to materialism and communism; a third complete the process; and a fourth contains the fundamentals of the dialectico-materialist and communist world outlook.’’ He notes the “fundamental importance”’ of drawing a “line between the early writings of Marx and Engels and the mature Marxist works.” I wrote above that this work is not an academic exercise. It is in fact a brilliant, invigorating creative undertaking. With Oizerman’s help and direction, one can sharpen ideological vigilance, expand scientific and deepen philosophic under- standing of scientific socialism. One of the uses to which pseudo-‘‘Leftists’’ have put the early writings is to distort the nature of “‘alienation.”’ Oizerman’s book clears up the matter. Attempts to give existential- ism a false **Marxist’’ base are dispelled by Oizerman’s analysis, as are the at- tempts to disguise other ideas which are given false **Marxist’’ covering. Marx and Engels rose to materialism and communism from idealism and rey- olutionary democracy,’ Oizerman states. They did so by absorbing the ad- vanced ideas of their times, and also by combatting and going beyond them. But philosophic and sociological conceptions that Marx and Engels combatted in the. 1840s are revived today. Marx’s and En- gels’ criticism is still valid — and at the Same time can be seen as a criticism which was the beginning of Marxism, a clearing of the way for Marxism. A study of the making of Marxism “carries the student into the heart of the creative laboratory of the brilliant mak- ers’’ of the socialist world outlook ‘tand gives a more concrete and definite understanding of how its basic proposi- tions were elaborated,’’ Oizerman writes. His book is an outstanding, attention-holding example of this kind of study. It is an example valued in the So- viet Union, where it received the Lomonosov Prize of the Moscow State University. Engels said that the study of the his- tory of philosophy provides a good schooling for theoretical thinking. This is also what Oizerman’s study achieves. — Conrad Komorowski U.S. Daily World | | .